


Group Projects and Movies

by Weevilo707



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, First Dates, M/M, oblivious karkat, who does not realize it's a date
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-04
Updated: 2017-08-04
Packaged: 2018-12-10 23:34:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11702184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Weevilo707/pseuds/Weevilo707
Summary: Karkat was not particularly fond of group projects. He guessed his partner could've been a lot shittier though.





	Group Projects and Movies

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MoonPaw17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonPaw17/gifts).



Karkat fucking hated group projects. It was pretty safe to say that he hated most things involving groups as a general rule. Putting that together with completely unnecessary work for classes he didn’t particularly care about, there was nothing that could make this situation any more appealing. 

There was, surprisingly, a way to make it even less appealing though. Don’t let him choose his partner. Yep, the dread was really starting to kick in now. 

He waited as the teacher droned on the list of two people groups for this dumb fuck project. The longer he went without hearing his name the more he tried to figure out how bad it could go. There wasn’t anyone in this class he particularly hated, but he also wasn’t all too fond of anyone either. Plus there were a lot of people he didn’t know much at all and they all had plenty of opportunities to turn out to be complete asshats. 

“-ve Strider and Karkat Vantas,” the teacher listed, Karkat’s head shooting up at the mention of his name. He’d almost didn’t hear who his apparent partner's name with how he ended up spacing out. Looking over, he saw the other boy gathering up his shit, joining the mess of students looking for new seats near their assigned groups. It didn’t take long for him to plop down in the recently emptied desk next to Karkat.

“So, group projects, am I right?” Dave said, and Karkat really wasn’t interested in the pathetic attempt at small talk. He didn’t know Dave too well. He was a friend of Terezi and John and seemed pretty fucking obnoxious from the few interactions they’d had, but that didn’t matter too much if he did his work. It didn’t matter if he didn’t either, because then Karkat would do it all himself and that was somehow preferable. 

“Let’s just figure out this newspaper shit as fast as possible, alright?” he said, looking over the rubric. All in all it was a pretty simple project. Create a fake front page for a newspaper complete with pictures for some historical date, include other stories besides the main one that was going on at the time. 

“Well you’re cheery,” Dave said, and Karkat rolled his eyes in as exaggerated a manner as he could possibly manage. 

“It’s eight in the fucking morning and I’m being forced to both socialize and collaborate against my will, I’m chipper as fuck,” he grumbled. 

“Fair enough,” Dave said with a shrug before turning and looking over the rubric as well. “Shouldn’t be too bad. I guess one of us could do the main story and the other could do all the little side articles?” he suggested and okay, they were actually talking about the project. Karkat kinda thought he would try and dick around or make him do all the thinking or something. 

“That sounds like a pretty even split,” Karkat agreed. Okay, maybe the guy was kinda obnoxious but at least he didn’t seem to be a horrible group partner so far. He could always prove him wrong later, but at least it wasn’t a crash and burn from the get go. They ended up settled on Karkat doing the main article while Dave filled in the mini-stories. 

Once the teacher assigned all the groups she went and assigned the historic dates to each of them as well. Karkat didn’t have any particular feelings on what they were given, he wasn’t exactly invested in this project. 

Dave didn’t seem all that interested either, but Karkat couldn’t be sure if that was because Dave never seemed all that interested in anything or not. That was one of the many reasons Karkat kind of took him for an asshole. You don’t put that much effort into pretending you’re not putting effort in without being a particularly bad brand of pretentiousness. Which Dave absolutely was, don’t get him wrong at all. As they worked on the project throughout class Karkat found it a little less obnoxious than he’d been expecting though. It had only been fifteen minutes or so to plan out shit, but it could have gone a lot worse. 

They didn’t have another appointed group project time for a couple of days and Karkat hadn’t bothered to do much work in that passing time. Luckily when they were sent to the computer lab to do research it didn’t seem like Dave had touched the thing since they were last sat down either. 

“So how many side articles do you think would be good?” Dave asked him as he clicked around on the slow as fuck computer he was stuck with. He swore this computer lab was older than some of the fucking teachers. 

“Hm? I don’t know, depends on how long you make them I guess. Three or four? Whatever equals about the same as the main one,” Karkat told him. Starting the research, it didn’t seem like it would take too long for him to knock out the article he needed. 

“What do you wanna do for pictures?” Dave asked after another moment. Karkat shrugged, not really caring. 

“I don’t know, google image it like everyone else?” he said. He never pretended to be a super great or involved project partner, that was another reason why he hated this kind of group work. Dave didn’t seem too bothered by that though, nodding and turning back towards his screen. 

“Sounds good,” he said simply. The rest of the class went by pretty quietly, and Karkat finished up research quick enough to write up a rough draft of the start of the article. He wasn’t paying much attention to whatever Dave was doing, as long as he got his shit done in time to put it all on a newspaper together it didn’t matter to him. 

He didn’t expect Dave to stop him before he left the computer lab once class was over. “Hey, give me your phone,” he said, which wasn't the most reassuring thing Karkat had ever heard. 

“Uh, why the fuck would I do that?” he asked, slinging his bookbag over his shoulder. 

“So I can put my number in it in case we need to talk about the project? Like if the idea is that horrible to you that’s cool, just thought it’d make shit easier is all,” Dave explained, and oh. Okay, that made a lot more sense than him just randomly trying to steal his phone. 

“No, no that’s fine. Yeah here,” he said, handing him his phone. After another moment Dave gave it back and it didn’t take long for Karkat to find the new contact labeled ‘coolest kid in school B)’ and rolled his eyes. He didn’t bother to change it though, it wasn’t worth the effort. Instead he texted Dave saying ‘don’t give me a stupid name in your phone’ so that he’d have his number as well. He'd never been more positive about a thing than he was about Dave blatantly ignoring his request. 

Karkat didn’t actually expect Dave to ever text him. Maybe once to clear up some technicality for their project, but that was it. So when he did get a message asking about how long his article was gonna be about it didn’t surprise him. He could understand Dave not wanting to do more work than he needed to if Karkat’s section wasn’t super long. 

What did surprise him was when Dave just kept fucking texting him. If he was trying to stay on the topic of the project he was doing a really bad job. There wasn’t even anything to talk about with it at this point. According to him he’d finished up the side articles and Karkat was done with his, so they only had to format it and put in pictures and shit. 

That wasn’t even close to whatever Dave was going off about now. Maybe he should actually pay attention to the incoming texts, but he had no idea why Dave was even talking to him. He didn’t seem to get the message from his short answers every so often, so he decided to ignore him for a while. 

That worked until there was a quick flurry of texts coming in before radio silence. He could leave it alone, but now that he’d stopped so suddenly Karkat was curious. Scrolling up to the last time he messaged Dave back, he started reading. 

TG: right i told john it was stupid  
TG: dude can’t go dragging me to every film he can find with the shitty CG imaginable and then bail on me when something that actually looks half fucking decent comes along  
TG: his fucking loss I’ll just find someone else to come with  
TG: you like movies right that’s something i distinctly remember  
TG: you free friday  
TG: i mean it’s cool if you aren’t or if you are free but would rather not spend your time watching a dope movie with a dope dude  
TG: did i just call myself a dope dude holy shit  
TG: ignore that  
TG: the offer still stands though  
TG: if you want  
TG: yeah im just gonna  
TG: shut up now 

Karkat blinked as he reread the messages, going a little further up to try and remember the fucking context for that conversation. Okay, they were talking about movies or something he supposed. He still wasn’t entirely sure what movie it was Dave was inviting him to, or why. Seriously, what the fuck? He knew Dave had more friends than just John, he could’ve invited one of them to go with him if he wanted to. 

CG: Sure.  
TG: wait what  
CG: Sure, I’m free on Friday, what time?  
TG: oh sweet  
TG: does six work  
CG: Yeah that’s fine.  
TG: awesome see you then  
CG: See you. 

Karkat was so fucking confused as he tried to figure out what the fuck just happened and why he agreed to go with Dave to the movies. He guessed he did like movies, and he hadn’t been in a while. He still didn’t understand why Dave had wanted to go with him, but whatever. He probably just had no one else to go with like he said and decided to invite the first person he spoke to, which happened to be Karkat. 

He didn’t see much of Dave in the few days before Friday. Their newspaper was due on Thursday and thankfully they didn’t have any sort of bullshit presentation part. Karkat didn’t have any real worry that they weren’t gonna get a good grade on this. He’d read over Dave’s part and it was pretty good, it nearly made Karkat interested in the subject the articles were talking about. 

By the time Friday came Karkat was starting to think that maybe Dave had forgotten about the movie thing, because he didn’t speak to him about at all in any of their classes. It wasn’t until he was heading home after school that he finally got a text from Dave asking if he was still good for the movies tonight. Karkat sent back a quick affirmative and figured he should have enough time to eat something before Dave showed up. 

Karkat wasn’t entirely sure when the movie started, since Dave had said six and he didn’t know if that was the time they were meeting up or if it was the start time. Dave showed up about ten minutes before six and the theater was only about fifteen minutes away, so either way he guessed it wasn’t too bad. 

The walk to the movies was a little awkward, although Karkat couldn’t really put a finger on why. Dave was talking a lot, and that wasn’t anything new. Karkat was actually bothering to pay attention now and okay maybe he wasn’t actually that big of a douche. He actually seemed kind of nervous for some fucking reason, which was weird. Dave wasn’t exactly someone Karkat took to care enough to actually be nervous in the first place. He somehow managed to talk even more than usual when nervous though, which was a feat. 

The movie ended up being surprisingly good, despite it not being exactly something Karkat would go out of his way to see. The humor was decent and the romance wasn’t even that forced. Karkat had managed to eat beforehand and didn’t want to waste money on shitty stale popcorn, so Dave had brought a large and offered to share it. 

It was fucking weird. While they were walking back Karkat realized he was actually having a good time. He was laughing at some stupid fucking joke Dave had made about how different the movie would have been if characters could realize what genre they were in. 

“We should do this again sometime. I’ll even let you pick the movie next time, cause there’s no fucking way anything you can think of will be half as bad as some of the shit John’s forced me to sit though,” Dave said. They’d almost reached Karkat’s house at this point, and honestly the idea of hanging out with Dave again was kind of appealing. 

“Sure, that doesn’t sound half bad,” he said, a smile flashing across Dave’s face for the briefest of moments before he was back to a more neutral expression. 

“Cool, cool. See you around then,” Dave said, stopping in front of Karkat’s house. 

“Yeah, see ya,” he responded. There was a weird moment where Dave was just kind of staring at him, and Karkat frowned and raised an eyebrow in question. Dave didn’t say anything, nodding awkwardly before turning away. With a shrug Karkat went back inside his house. 

It was maybe fifteen minutes later that Dave started texting him again, continuing on with the idea of self-aware movie characters, somehow shifting from that to self-aware movies themselves and how shit movies should know they're shit and give you money in apology for making you stare at them for hours. It was stupid, but Karkat found himself lying on his bed, snickering at the dumb jokes. 

It wasn’t until _much_ later that night, after he and Dave finally stopped talking and Karkat was half asleep did he suddenly sit up in bed, his face bright fucking red.

Wait. 

Was that- 

Had that been a _date?!_

…

Karkat groaned, hiding his hot face in his hands. Goddamn it, he was such a fucking idiot sometimes. 

Slumping back down into bed, he exchanged his hands for his pillow as a place to hide. He needed as much surface area to mask his shame as possible. 

The idea of doing _whatever that was_ with Dave again though still didn’t seem half bad though. 

He kinda wanted to, actually.

**Author's Note:**

> I wanna thank moonpaw17 for requesting this! it was a cute little thing to write and i'm glad to be able to get some content out. highschool aus are always fun. 
> 
> dave's side of this was literally just 'does he hate me? Maybe if i do well on the project he'll wanna hang out more. wait fuck did i just ask him out wait fuck did he just say yes shit shit shit'


End file.
